What We Lost
by shooting-stetsons
Summary: Lion-Hearted Girl series supplement. In the quiet hours after her daughter is born, Natasha has a visitor.


Natasha had just woken up and given Katerina - _her daughter_ - the first meal of her life and felt more accomplished than she ever had before. Her head was swimming with exhaustion but watching Katya look around with her bleary blues was like a drug, her body ached but there was a sweetness to it, she was unstable and shaky, it was like being drunk on too much love. She held her daughter in the crook of her elbow, Katerina's wrinkled face scrunched as if in deep thought, and smiled. It was such a surprise and yet no surprise at all that she had been given the most perfect baby in the world.

There was a knock on the door. When she looked up a smile spread across her face.

"I hope I'm not intruding."

"'Course not, Phil, get in here," she insisted, voice still rumpled with sleep. Nurses said it was good to talk to the baby, let her get to know her Mama's voice, but Natasha had kept mostly mute. She didn't know what to say. Her smile faded and softened as Coulson came nearer, his eyes instantly drawn to her new little magnet. "I guess Barton's already making the rounds, huh?"

Hesitantly - oh, so hesitantly, like he was handling delicate explosives - Phil closed two fingers around Katerina's tiny socked foot. "There may have been a mass text involved," he conceded then, the corner of his mouth curling upward. "I suppose congratulations are expected."

"Obviously. I worked hard."

His chuckle broke the strange spell of tension hovering over them, sinking to sit in the chair beside her bed, still toying with Katya's sock. "You certainly did. You both did, by the looks of it," he replied. "What's her name? Katrina?"

Natasha shook her head. "Katerina. Katya for short. Or Katie, I guess," she shrugged, smoothing down a stray wisp of Katya's fine, light hair. She cast Coulson a look from the corner of her eyes. "Do you want to hold her?" The urge to laugh was almost too good when Phil's eyebrows shot up at the mere suggestion. After his moment of shock was over, though, he softened.

"Let me wash my hands first; I've been on the subway."

Not only did he wash his hands but strip of his jacket, aware of how the New York subway fumes could cling onto a person. Then, carefully, both of them fumbling and uncertain, Katerina passed hands. Natasha almost told Phil what she had in mind in his regard, but decided that maybe dropping a bomb on him wasn't the best idea when he was holding her daughter. Still, watching them together made every beat of her heart a painful reminder of how much she had to lose, now.

After a few minutes he surfaced from his silent rapture. "She's beautiful, Natasha. Looks just like you," he told her.

"Really?" Natasha incredulously asked, leaning forward as though she was going to find something new about Katerina even though she'd been obsessively drinking in the sight of her in every conscious moment since she was born. "I don't see it. She's Clint all the way. Or maybe one of our parents, but there's really no way of knowing _that_, is there?" For a moment her face fell, as it often had in the last weeks of her pregnancy, when all the books and guides told her nothing but to wait and use this time to learn about what birth and child-rearing had been like for her own parents. There was no guide to child-rearing for orphans.

Then Katya made a soft, involuntary creaking noise in the back of her throat, and the alarmed look on Phil's face was so sweet she couldn't help but whisper a laugh. It was chased with a sigh, easing herself back against the pillows and reaching a hand to touch Katya's hand. "I want you to be her godfather," she murmured.

Phil, admirably enough, did not drop the baby. His hold on her became even more secure if anything, but his eyebrows shot up and his lips pressed together as he thought. "Are you sure?" he asked after a few moments.

"There's no one else I would consider," replied Natasha instantly. "You brought Barton and me up well enough, didn't you?" His soft laugh eased the nervous line of his shoulders that was making the baby grumble. He met her eye with uncertainty, and she moved her hand to capture his wrist. "There is no one else in the world I would trust with my child, if Barton and I don't make it. I'm not joking. I _wish_ I were joking; I've seen your house plants."

He laughed again; she would have joined him if she weren't so sore.

Standing, Phil returned Katya to her bassinet so he could better perch on the edge of Natasha's bed, and put a hand on her shoulder. "You know that I would be honored, Natasha..." he sincerely began.

"But you can't," she nodded, feeling weariness begin tugging at her again. "I know."

"You don't," whispered Phil as she closed her eyes. Warm dry lips pressed to her forehead. "You really, really don't..."

She snapped awake and the room was dark, even though she could still hear Phil's voice in her ears. Clint was asleep in the chair beside her; when she looked at the clock, she saw it had only been three hours since the baby was born. But that couldn't be right. They had both woken up and it had been daylight again when Phil came.

Then she remembered with a painful jolt, because of course. Phil hadn't really visited, and couldn't really be Katya's godfather, because he was dead. Had been for three years. Natasha reached into the bassinet to touch her daughter's hand before drifting to sleep again.


End file.
